Seek Pleasure. It may save your life.

“The deliberate pursuit of pleasure not only can improve a woman’s life. It can save a woman’s life.” ~Christiane Northrop

"There’s plenty of science to support the pleasure health connection.  Part of the reason for this has to do with the massive amount of a gas called nitric oxide which is produced by the endothelial lining of the blood vessels during states of joy, pleasure, and ecstasy. Nitric oxide is the uber neurotransmitter that balances all the others like dopamine, serotonin and beta endorphin, the same neurotransmitters that so many try to balance with psych meds.” 
~Christiane Northrup 

I feel compelled to add that I absolutely support psych meds for people for whom they bring relief and see many clients who have received tremendous benefits from meds.

Over the last week, I’ve been in one of the most stressful situations I have experienced in recent history. It has required me to call in all of my resources around being present, staying out of fear, inhabiting this moment, observing my thoughts, and trusting that all is well and all will be well. My deep core beliefs about God (and Goddess) and a benevolent universe were essential for me to stay grounded this week while I entered an unknown realm that I needed to learn to navigate while I was walking through it. Or speeding through it rather..

When my blood pressure was rising, and my heart was racing, and I wasn’t sleeping in the middle of the night, what drew me out was moving into pleasure. For me pleasure is derived by inhabiting my body…feeling into it. And also by a huge belly laugh, turning on very loud music and moving my body and dancing in any way it desires, getting into nature, connecting with friends and creating beauty. Kissing. Holding my dogs. Listening to a new idea or concept I get to learn for the first time. Pleasure. Learning. Love. Expanding. In short; being totally present to the moment.

Pleasure and love are necessary to save us from the high stress and tension that exist in our world and in our relationships right now. Dr Kelly Brogan writes, “Eros is what will restore our fragmented world.This embodied life force energy is the expression of the divine impulse born of pleasure and the desire to create what can’t be created and nourished through control and force based power. It flows between us and weaves us into the fabric of our nature.”

Find out what it is for you. Get off of social media as often as you can, take breaks from a computer screen, move away from news sources that are creating stress in your life and find what gives you pleasure.  Seek connection to self and others, especially people who think differently than you.  Pursue this relentlessly. Our lives depend on it.